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Goodbye Apple, Hello Music Production On Ubuntu
Adam Wrzeski notes a piece up at Create Digital Music by musician Kim Cascone (artist's bio) on switching from Apple to Linux for audio production: "The [Apple] computer functioned as both sound design studio and stage instrument. I worked this way for ten years, faithfully following the upgrade path set forth by Apple and the various developers of the software I used. Continually upgrading required a substantial financial commitment on my part. ... I loaded up my Dell with a selection of Linux audio applications and brought it with me on tour as an emergency backup to my tottering PowerBook. The Mini 9 could play back four tracks of 24-bit/96 kHz audio with effects — not bad for a netbook. The solution to my financial constraint became clear, and I bought a refurbished Dell Studio 15, installed Ubuntu on it, and set it up for sound production and business administration. The total cost was around $600 for the laptop plus a donation to a software developer — a far cry from the $3000 price tag and weeks of my time it would have cost me to stay locked-in to Apple. After a couple of months of solid use, I have had no problems with my laptop or Ubuntu. Both have performed flawlessly, remaining stable and reliable."
nice to see a person that has the right tool for the job. BTW you wern't locked into Apple, you were locked into the software developers choice of OS and hardware.
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Anyone who believes this has never tried to record and mix multitrack audio on Linux
I actually find it interesting, considering that a few years ago you often had to go through hell just to get anything to come out of the sound card using linux.
On the other hand, many still do have trouble getting anything to get out of their sound card on Linux. I agree that the story is "interesting," but those of us serious Linux users will have to admit that the audio situation here is far from ideal, to put it positively. Alsa.... pulse.... awful. Compound this with the noticeable lack of good software and drivers for audio production equipment, and I will have to admit that the vast majority of professional audio people are much better of staying with Apple at the moment.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
...is that all his music creating can be summed up in him cutting and playing back audio samples with various effects on it - there is no actual sequencing or other advanced music creation involved.
Had there been, I'd say, with many years experience as a composer, that this article would not be.
I could certainly do it for under $500 with a good used MacBook. Does that make the $600 for the refurbished old-school Dell system "more expensive"?
This dude is not exactly producing musical scores using his Ubuntu rig. I mean, seriously... go check out some of the stuff on his store and you'll see why (examples):
Reaching Dark Stations
Recorded in Regina, Saskatchewan in 2007 at the Neutral Ground Gallery:::industrial factory sounds filtered through a turbine jet engine::Play loud, play often:::Statistically Improbable Phrases
30 minutes of sputtering modems and hacked sparking mainframes; the sound of technology gone awry mixed with submariner dark station dronescapes; briny chains scraping against the hulls of rusted ships. Recorded live in Paris at Instant Chavires
In short, he doesn't need the type of precision and accuracy provided by higher-end hardware and/or custom interfaces and plugins that one would need for 'serious' music (yes, I went there), so he can get away with using Ubuntu. After all, it's just 'bleepy shit' anyway.
The heavyweight music creation tools don't exist because a) there's not much of a market for them on Linux because; b) Audio support is most definitely not fine.
Agreed. Driver support amongst studio quality interfaces is severely lacking and limits your options significantly.
i'm extremely pleased with fedora 11 running on my netbook, but i completely agree with you. i switched to fedora from zenwalk because as much as i loved learning linux, at times i just wanted shit to work so i could do something productive with it. and fedora allows me the niceties of aircrack, perfectly working intel drivers, etc. not seeing UNCLAIMED next to anything except my currently unused VGA port is brilliant. and the wifi drivers are so far along compared to what i was using in zenwalk. monitor mode working with atheros out of the box is nearly orgasmic. for me, this makes my netbook perfect for everything it needs to do. however, it doesn't take a kernel hacker to realize how behind the audio subsystem is. i use mpd, which requires me to modprobe snd-pcm-oss for it to output sound. annoying and easy to fix, but it tells me much about how this would affect somebody who needs to make a living in the audio field. program compatibility with whatever sound system you using alone could break you. let alone the intricacies i'm not thinking of that somebody who actually knows what they are talking about might bring up. unfortunately, linux needs more people who are crafty programmers that specialize in audio. people who need audio to work a certain way, rather than people willing to work a certain way to get audio.
You could buy a used (aka EBAY, craigs list, apple.com) macbook (which would blow the doors off of the mini) to replace your 5-7 year old powerbook for about $700. It would (or at least should) include the latest iLife bits. You'd be way ahead. Linux is a helluvalot better than OSX for stuff like databases and web servers, but there is no way that video or audio applications (or most any desktop app) are anywhere close. I used linux exclusively on my notebooks from 98-06 and I can tell you about 1000s of hours wasted (although I enjoyed it) getting everything to run. With OSX everything just runs. Plus, using the media apps is a breeze.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
...you must be kiddin'!
First of all, Linux is not the guilty one for not providing software for musicians. It is the developers of the software, like Apple, Steinberg, Propellerheads and Native Instruments, to name a few big ones.
Second, without all that Software. And I mean specifically that software, it is literally impossible to create the wanted sound on a Linux platform.
My setup is nearly 100% software (with a set of MIDI devices and a powerful sound card), and includes Cubase, Reason, Reaktor, Absynth, DR-008, and pretty much every Software from Native Instruments. And that is only the base. You also have to add a ton of specific plug-ins. E.g. for reverbs using impulse responses, or very specific filters to create the sound of a vintage synth.
You can not ever possibly recreate this under Linux, without it becoming a main platform for music production, so that those companies port their software. Which of course is a vicious circle.
But if Steinberg alone would port their VST platform Cubase onto Linux (Don't tell me about using it in Wine. I tried it. For real songs with dozens of tracks. It's a total joke. And I don't even mean the latency.), the circle could be broken.
So please stop with your dreamy dreams from wannabe professional musicians telling me how they were able to create a simple four-track audio song with some amateur FX plugged in. Because it has nothing to do with even my semi-professional work.
P.S.: I may sound angrier than I am. In fact I really *really* wish I could help with some big thing, like persuade Steinberg.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It's a bit like your child, or your sports team (when you're the trainer)... You love to see it grow, flourish, any become king of the world. Because in a way, this makes you the king of the king of the world. And who wouldn't love that?
Linux is the child of us all. And it just passed puberty, but still can't go get drunk and play with the big girls/boys.
Try adding some work to a Linux project, and then notice, how you start to get this feeling too.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Add me to the exception list. When I think it is flawless in Linux, it's broken for either mixing, volume, recording, blah blah. I don't have the time nor inclination to bother fixing it anymore. Sound has worked flawlessly for me in Windows since Windows 3.1.